With the second week of DVR data in, Fox’s New Girl has managed to tie CBS’ 2 Broke Girls season-to-date as the two highest-rated new comedies. One might say this is a bit more impressive for New Girl since it builds from Glee lead-in whereas Broke Girls had that big boost from Two and a Half Men for its debut. Or you could argue that New Girl has the advantage because Broke has aired four episodes (and ratings for new shows tend to dip a little each week) and New Girl has only aired three (since Fox has sent Deschanel away until November … perhaps in search of her show’s missing The). Either way, both are now tied with a 5.5 adult demo average.

Here’s who else really benefited from DVR playback (unlike above, this is just for the second week): ABC’s Modern Family had the biggest raw gain during the second week of the season, its overnight rating leaping from a 5.7 to a 7.9 … that’s like Modern Family taking some modestly performing other show and eating it. ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (3.6 to 5.1) and Two and a Half Men (7.4 to 8.9) also posted steep gains.

If you look at which shows had biggest gains on a percentage basis — in other words, which enjoyed the biggest increase compared to their debuts rather which ones had the largest raw increase — Fox’s Fringe is at the top of the list. Literally a minority of the show’s viewers actually watch this show the first night it airs (Fridays) — the second week got a 67 percent bump, from a 1.2 to a 2.0.

I purposely stay home on Friday night, or if out, I will leave my friends who all know I MUST be home Friday night to watch Fringe live. If this show were to be cancelled, I would stop watching TV forever.

Alex,keep telling your friends in the US to watch live!Thanks for your support and you are "absofringely" right. It is the best show on TV and the writers have done an excellent job telling THEIR story so far. I hope they get to tell it to the end. Fringe Rocks!

With Fringe in the Friday night basement, I don't see how it's ever going to get significant live viewers in the modern age of DVRs and Hulu. What we should be insisting on is that Fox executives either move the show back to a night when people are at home, OR that they judge Fringe's real viewership in it's entirety: Live, DVR and internet.

SO wait, I never get a straight answer about this... If I watch Fringe live every week, commercials and all, but do not have a Nielsen Box, does that mean that my watching it would not contribute to the ratings in any way?